The battle ended just as quickly as it had begun. With each of the seven points going to Felix in less than twenty seconds. It seemed like the gap between their magical strength was somehow even greater than the gap between their physical strength and fighting skill. Which Sam knew beforehand, he just didn’t expect it to be so evident. All of his recently imprinted patterns felt meaningless in the face this defeat. How many seconds had they added to each bout? Five? Ten? Any at all?

  “Why so glum, chum?” Felix asked with a smile.

  “I think you know.” Sam sighed as he stretched upwards, lifting his training artifact above him.

  “Don’t be so down. I was going all out. Burned like ten percent of my core capacity right now. Obviously, I’d kick your ass if I used all of my active patterns while you only had sustained ones.”

  “I do have two active patterns.”

  “Yeah, but they don’t count. The only reason why we keep them as active is that it’d be annoying to have them on all the time. We’re not meant to live in slow-mo.”

  “I wish it were anywhere close to slow-mo. As it were, it just made getting my ass kicked seem slightly less hectic and confusing.”

  “Well you gotta start somewhere. And you happen to start going against people two levels higher than you. I’m sure you’d kick the ass of every level 1 you’d come up against.”

  “I’m sure I will.” Sam rolled his eyes. “But I haven’t fought a fifteen-year-old ever since I was one. So I’m not hurrying to get my kicks in.”

  “You did well, Sam,” Lin said and handed him his water bottle. “Drink, rest for a minute. Then go again. Let’s have Felix get down to less than half of his core capacity before we rein in the difficulty, yes?”

  “Fine by me.” Felix smiled widely.

  “Hurray,” Sam muttered.

  Less than a minute later, they were back at it. And Sam once again lost decisively and swiftly. And the same held for the spar after that. However, during the fourth spar, he managed to hold on a little longer, and during one of the points even inched close to lasting a full minute. It was obvious that both he and Felix were getting a little tired as the fifth spar lasted over five minutes overall. Sam still lost overwhelmingly, and he hadn’t truly got close to landing a hit on Felix. But he did manage to block and parry a few unexpected attacks. Which was something to be proud of in his book.

  With a groan, he turned off his active patterns for speeding up his reaction time and thought process and blearily watched as objective reality reasserted itself. It really wasn’t a major enough difference to count as slow-motion, but it was a difference, and it made itself evident in its disappearance.

  Felix, flexing his back and massaging it with one hand, slowly let out his breath as he walked over to their bags to drink some water. Sam soon joined him, and they stood silently side by side for a minute as they slowly drank.

  “Ah…” Felix let out as he finished drinking. “I gotta tell you: kicking your ass? Not as fun as I thought it was going to be.”

  “Is it at least as easy as you thought it was going to be?”

  “If you’d asked me half a year ago? Nope. A week? I guess so. Come back to me in a year and let’s see how easy a time I’ll have.”

  “I’m sure it’d take longer than a year for me to close the gap.”

  Felix frowned at him. “Who said anything about closing the gap? And thank you for being so sure of that happening, by the way. I was just talking about the gap being smaller, my training hitting a point of diminishing returns and whatnot.”

  “Diminishing returns? What are those?” Sam asked. Felix smacked him on the shoulder.

  “You two ready to go again?” Lin asked.

  “Just a minute.” Felix held up his hand.

  “It’s not easy going all out,” Lin told him. “But it can be a good form of training. You do need to know how to fight when you don’t care what will happen to you after the fight. And it helps to familiarize yourself with getting into that mode of fighting from different points of readiness. Sometimes you’ll find yourself having to put everything on the line when all that remains in your tank is fumes.”

  “And you also need to know how to bluff.” Felix nodded. “Unfortunately, Sam isn’t a very good training partner for this aspect. And he won’t be at all once he starts using his Sight during fights.”

  “I don’t know…” Sam said, thinking of his spars with Erianna. “Learning to fight against someone who can see your threads does make sense. We’re all aiming to be Rulers at the end of the day, no?”

  “Sure we are. But at least for now, for me to train like that would be like training blind. I’ll only know whether I’m doing well if you or Erianna tell me.”

  “I suppose that’s true. In any case, I’m still not going to be utilizing my Sight anytime soon.” He looked at Lin, who gave a nod in return.

  “It’s an important tool in your arsenal,” Lin said. “But you need to make sure not to utilize it too much and too early. Otherwise, you risk it becoming a crutch. For now, you have plenty of aspects to focus on without needing to branch into other areas.”

  “Alright,” Felix said and straightened up. “Let’s go again.”

  They walked back to the center of the room and adopted a fighting posture. “Now,” Lin said, “take it a little easier. Try to prolong the fights like you did when you started sparring against Sam. Try not using your active patterns. It’s a good lesson in itself.”

  Felix nodded. “Fighting on empty.”

  This time, the fight lasted a full ten minutes. Sam still hadn’t managed to score a hit, but he did get close on a couple of occasions. Which was, of course, only the first hurdle he had to overcome. The second was obviously landing the hit. But the third and new part was making sure that he utilized his magic and artifact correctly. So far, he only had stationary targets and the fighting demos, which Lin guided him through to train that aspect. He was pretty good and consistent with it. But it was easy being consistent when you weren’t under actual pressure.

  “We’ll have two more spars like this one,” Lin said. “Then we’ll finish with some exercises. Felix, feel free to stay or leave for that last part.”

  “I’ll stay,” Felix said. “I’ve been neglecting that part of my training lately. Been a month or two since I last practiced channeling energy through a weapon.”

  Lin nodded. “It’s reasonable at this stage of your training. Unlike in physical combat, going back to the solo-training routines isn’t as useful after a certain point. But like I said, if you want to, feel free to stay.”

  “Not like I have anywhere else to go,” Felix shrugged as he turned to Sam.

  “You can always take a long shower,” Sam said. “Or use that time to cultivate.”

  “Unlike you, I don’t get off on using every second of my day to cultivate. And I’m perfectly content with my current progress to level 4.”

  “Who said I wasn’t content with my level of progress?”

  “True enough. If you weren’t happy about that, I’d have smacked you. Ready to go?”

  Sam nodded and crouched down into a fighting position. The next two spars both lasted longer than ten minutes, although Sam didn’t feel like he performed particularly better in either of them. He still hadn’t managed to land a hit on Felix. The benefits that Felix was getting from his sustained patterns was just that much greater than the benefits that Sam was getting. And when you combined that with Felix already being better than Sam in physical combat… Sam still had a long way to go until he could be satisfied that his personal strength was appropriate for his age.

  The last twenty minutes of the lesson passed much more placidly, as Lin led them through mostly magical exercises with some physical ones sprinkled in. In Sam’s opinion, he was already close to reaching a point where the benefit of practicing magical combat through solo-exercise was starting to diminish. Sure, not at the level of where Felix was, but close enough so that he started thinking that there could be a better use of his time. And he supposed that Lin was aware of this since they had just used today to do just that, after all.

  Once the lesson was over, they bid goodbye to Lin and grabbed a quick shower before leaving for the mess hall. “Ugh,” Felix said, “I’ll have to spend some time gathering, anyway. Can’t go to my magical combat lesson this empty.”

  “Why not? Wasn’t that the whole point that Lin was trying to make? Learning how to make do with having less in the tank?”

  “Tsk. I guess… I don’t know. Maybe you’re right, and I just don’t want to lose.”

  “Not wanting to lose? What’s that like?”

  Felix chuckled. “Alright. I already went at you for cultivating. Guess I won’t be a hypocrite and go to the lesson with whatever my core will have managed to recharge in three hours.”

  “Look on the bright side, in a couple of months or so, you’ll have someone who you’ll surely always be able to win against even when you’re only running on sustained patterns.”

  “Good. So that’ll balance out Erianna joining my lessons. I can count the number of times I won against her on one hand.”

  “What are you whining about? She’s a whole level higher than you in case you forgot. Not to mention all the other things that she has over anyone else here who isn’t me.”

  “I’m just trying to remind you that you’re not the only one who suffers because they have to fight against someone much stronger than they are. So in case you ever thought of complaining about losing to me, just remember that it’s your fault that Erianna’s here.”

  Sam shook his head. “I didn’t tell her to join your guys’ lesson. I thought she would only join Sarah’s.”

  “She’s been to all the year three classes and two others in our year at this point. I’m just thankful she hasn’t decided to make the lives of some first-years miserable. Who the hell allowed her to just join whichever classes she wanted?!”

  “Probably the administration. The superintendent surely had to sign off on that.”

  “Bloody preferential treatment.”

  “Hey! That’s the person who’s giving me preferential treatment that you’re complaining about.”

  Felix laughed. “Trust me. I know exactly how much you two’s relationship is annoying me.”

  Sam looked at him quizzically. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That the two of you together manage to somehow amplify the annoyance I feel from each one of you individually. You’re like those couples who make it unbearable for everyone else to spend time with them.”

  Sam raised an eyebrow. “Really? That’s the image you went for? I highly doubt I even have it in me to be in a relationship with a person who might, if they’d found the correct partner, possibly be one half of that type of couple.”

  “You’d be surprised. From where I’m standing, you two are already filling the role of the annoying, perfectly compatible couple. Sans the romance, of course.” He raised an eyebrow with a smile.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Sam frowned back at him. “The only thing perfect around here is your exaggerating this shit.”

  “Fine. Don’t believe me. History will vindicate me in the end.”

  “Only time will tell. In any case, from what I understand, Erianna has only been to your and the other second-year classes once.”

  “True enough. And I’m the one who keeps inventing her to join me for private practice and kick my ass. Doesn’t mean I can’t bitch about being able to count the number of times I’ve won against her on one hand.”

  Sam held a closed fist up to Felix’s face. “Hey, wanna guess how I feel?”

  “That’s different. We have a two-level difference and a lifetime of training between us. The only thing Erianna has on me is a year of training and—for now—one level.”

  “And being a Thread-Weaver.”

  “Well I can’t very well catch up in that aspect any time soon, can I?”

  “You can be a late bloomer.”

  “I think if I were one of those, it’d become pretty evident by now. Didn’t you say something like that?”

  Sam shrugged. “Sure. But there have been level 4 who found themselves with the Sight. And the oldest I believe to become a later Thread-Weaver was… twenty-eight. Human-elven scale, of course.”

  “Well, I’d rather put my hopes in getting to level 10 as fast as possible and not that I’d be one of the arbitrarily chosen few.”

  “Hmm…”

  “What?” Felix nudged him on the shoulder. “I was only joking.”

  “What? Oh, no. It’s alright. I was just wondering just how much of it is arbitrary.” He then shook his head before nodding towards Yvessa, who was waiting for them by the mess hall entrance.

  “What do you mean?” Felix asked as they entered and set about picking their food. “Aren’t you the one who’s always harping on about how being a Thread-Weaver isn’t something you earned? What is it you call it?”

  “Brute luck,” Yvessa supplied. “What are you talking about?”

  “Sam was wondering whether being a Thread-Weaver is fully arbitrary or whether… That there is something else at play?” Felix pursed his lips in question.

  “I don’t know…” Sam sighed and was saved from needing to elucidate on the topic for the next two minutes as they each split up to pick their food.

  “So what made you bring it up?” Felix returned to the topic as they sat down to eat.

  “Well, it is unfair, isn’t it?” Sam’s brows furrowed.

  “Not more than anything else to do with genetics,” Yvessa said. “I mean, we’ve not just been given arbitrary good fortune with our pathways, but also with our physical health.”

  “I know. And I’m not trying to solve the problem of brute luck. I wrote a whole paper about it and how true equality would just mean living in a shitty dystopia like in Brave New World. It’s just that… it is a… talent, I guess, that you can improve on no matter what your starting position was.”

  “So?” Felix said. “What about sculpting? You can also improve your pathways.”

  “Yeah, but sculpting isn’t the same thing. It’s about improving something material, and it does that by changing it wholly. Not by, for example, making you better at tracing through shitty pathways. It’s the difference between becoming a chess-grandmaster through hard training, then by getting some sci-fi brain surgery to make you super smart. You see where I’m going with this? Using the Sight and working with threads is a mental improvement. You improve by you yourself becoming better at it. Sculpting is just improving your pathways by changing them.”

  “OK, but you could say the same thing about being a chess-grandmaster. You need to have some baseline of genetic luck in order for your hard work to end up meaning something. Or exercises: we can all improve our fitness—or most people can—but our ceiling is heavily dependent on our genes.”

  Sam snapped his fingers. “Exactly, but it doesn’t hold true for thread-work and using the Sight. I mean, only two of the Chosen were Thread-Weavers, right? Being a Thread-Weaver just determines when you can start climbing up, not how high you can climb.”

  “Hm…” Yvessa nodded in thought. “I can see what you mean. In a sense, it’s more like hitting puberty earlier. You get access to your full physical capabilities faster. But it doesn’t mean that they’ll be any better than someone who got it later.”

  “But isn’t hitting puberty also wholly arbitrary?” Felix asked. “In a natural state, of course.”

  Sam shrugged. “OK, but who’s to say that the non-arbitrary determinants of becoming a Thread-Weaver, if indeed there are some—aren’t natural? Maybe it’s something that happens during our childhood. To do with the way our brains develop and our personality forms. Sure, it’s still heavily dependent on arbitrary variables like genetics and the socio-economic status of our parents, but there’s still some level of… I don’t know, personal choice; a conscious mechanism.”

  “OK, so what is it about your personality—or Erianna’s personality at twelve—that made you become Thread-Weavers? I know I just harped on about how you two are like each other. But you still have pretty different personalities. And I imagine that it’d be twice as evident at twelve-years-old.”

  “And more importantly,” Yvessa said, “why is the current difference between our personalities so vast that you two are the only Thread-Weavers around?”

  Sam help up his hands. “I don’t know. Whatever the case may be. I feel like it’s obvious that being a Thread-Weaver is almost totally down to brute luck. I was just wondering whether there were other variables that could affect it. Say if you were just on the cusp of whatever magical genetic profile you needed to have so that a small push from having a certain way of thinking opened you to the Sight. After all, there is still the aspect of a person’s disposition to threads and Threadsight, which helps determine how fast they improve as a Thread-Weaver.”

  Felix laughed. “You’d do anything in order not to think of yourself as special, huh?”

  “Only surface-level arguments; as long as I can still go on believing that I am special and different from most other people.”

  “Of course you are!” Felix cooed and tried patting Sam on the head.

  Sam shook his hand off. “In any case. We don’t know anything about what determines who can be a Thread-Weaver. And for every case that seems to hint at a genetic correlation, like with Erianna’s, there are ten cases that disprove it. So who knows whether you can affect it?”

  Yvessa nodded. “True enough. Although I do understand why you’d want it to be something a little under your control. Obviously, you’re special due to being a Thread-Weaver and a Taken. Whether or not you were chosen by conscious decision or by a mechanical process, you still are the only one of your kind to be chosen. It’d be nice to think that it’s not wholly due to things out of your control.”

  Sam half-choked, spluttering in his haste to appear nonchalant. “Yeah, something like that. Ehrm. I guess so, at least. In any case, I obviously don’t need to worry about it. Having already made it into the club. Just be thankful for my good fortune.”

  Felix shrugged. “And who knows? Maybe in a hundred years they’ll make a discovery about the reasons why some people are Thread-Weavers. Maybe it is something that you can affect after birth.”

  “The more interesting question,” Yvessa said, “would be, in my opinion, whether that something was genetic.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Think about it, pathways are only hereditary to a certain degree, and they don’t act as genetics do. So there’s obviously a magical and not-fully physical variable that affects what kind of pathways you’re born with. And that must be doubly true for being a Thread-Weaver, which doesn’t have any foundation in the physical realm.”

  “Not that we know of. Maybe the structure of the brain does have something to do with it.”

  Yvessa nodded. “Exactly. So the question would be whether there is something physical that affects whether someone is a Thread-Weaver. Something genetic like your brain structure or neurochemistry. Or whether it wholly depends on the abstract magical self.”

  “Assuming of course that there is such a thing; that our purely magical self is wholly divorced from our physical state. You’re right, I guess you’d have to make a lot of breakthroughs in plenty of other fields before you can find ways to make people become Thread-Weavers.”

  “Well there is still the sure-fire way,” Sam said.

  “Is it sure-fire, though? Dan is still level 10.”

  “We don’t know why Dan isn’t a Ruler,” Yvessa said. “Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with threads.”

  “How can it not have something to do with threads when becoming a Ruler is all about using threads?”

  “Supposedly about using threads. You don’t know exactly what it involves.”

  “OK, but if Dan can use the Sight, how come he doesn’t help train Sam with it?”

  Sam shook his head. “That doesn’t actually prove anything. The only difference between a Ruler and a Thread-Weaver when it comes to threads is the ability to manipulate them. But it stands to reason that someone who had the Sight for almost a decade like Erianna would be more proficient with it than someone who just became a Ruler a year after reaching level 10.”

  “Sure, but Dan has been stuck at level 10 for more than a decade.”

  They looked at each other silently for a few seconds, each wondering the same thing. “I guess we don’t actually know what being able to access the Sight at a higher level looks like,” Yvessa said.

  “In theory, any person under level 9 who manages to access the Sight is considered a Thread-Weaver,” Sam said. “Although there are degrees of closeness, like Maurice, who can get a sense of Threads if he really focuses. In any case, accessing the Sight can’t be something that just happens out of the blue once you reach level 10. Because, as I understand it, opening the Sight for the first time is still the most common hurdle to becoming Ruler.”

  “Right.” Felix nodded. “So having Threadsight at level 10 is not actually guaranteed. Essentially, you need two things in order to become a ‘level 10 not-Thread-Weaver.’ Namely, being level 10. But also to do something extra. The question is whether that something extra is just learning how to open the Sight. Or also making some changes in order to be able to learn how to access the Sight.”

  Yvessa cupped her chin in thought. “But the point still stands that for anyone who isn’t a Thread-Weaver. The prerequisite to being able to use the Sight is being at least level 9. With level 10 being easier.”

  “Right… Does anyone else feel like we’re just going around in circles?”

  Sam nodded. “We definitely lack a lot of the required information to be able to even just theoretically discuss this topic.”

  “I guess we’d better drop it for now, then. No reason to dig ourselves deeper. Although I won’t let it be said that not knowing about something has ever prevented me from talking about it.”

  “I do wonder what’s… the reason behind Dan still being level 10,” Yvessa mused.

  “You were about to say ‘wrong,’ weren’t you?” Felix smiled.

  “You didn’t have to point that out.”

  “Well whatever it is, we’re still out of our depth when it comes to helping him. Assuming there is something other people can do to help. I mean, I assume it’s either unfixable or wholly up to Dan. Otherwise, surely other Rulers, or even one of the Chosen, would’ve lent him a hand.”

  Sam shrugged. “Maybe, but who knows? In a way, you’ll get to ask him what the reason is at the same time you could start catching up to Erianna is all aspects. When you’re level 10.”

  “Pft. Yeah, right.” Felix scoffed. “What are the chances that I’ll make it to level 10 before Erianna becomes a Ruler? It’s not like it’ll take her time to become one after she reaches level 10.”

  “You don’t know that,” Yvessa said. “The fact that all Thread-Weavers who reach level 10 can become Rulers doesn’t mean that it’s easy for them to do so. But it does seem to point that the—ugh—problem with Dan does have something to do with the Threadsight. Otherwise, there would be barriers between Thread-Weavers becoming Rulers such that not all of them could surely become one.”

  “Maybe not,” Sam said. “Maybe Dan’s problem is so rare that there wasn’t any Thread-Weaver who reached level 10 who had it. Or maybe the problem is something that doesn’t directly correlate to the Sight but is affected by what makes a person a Thread-Weaver. And let’s not forget that just because it’s common knowledge that all Thread-Weavers can become Rulers if they reach level 10. It doesn’t actually mean that it’s the truth. Who’s to say that history is filled with plenty of Thread-Weavers who were stuck on that cusp?”

  “I wouldn’t say filled.” Felix nodded. “But it does make sense that it’s not a 100% sure thing. Maybe it’s a 95% kind of thing that got rounded upwards. Still, I think we can all agree that you and Erianna definitely fall within that 95%, right?”

  “We’ll have to wait and see.”

  Felix rolled his eyes. “Really?”

  “Nah. I’m definitely going to become a Ruler. Same as you guys, though.”

  Felix smiled. “Thanks for the compliment.”

  “It wasn’t really a compliment. Just a statement of fact. I honestly can’t conceive of a world in which I can become a Ruler but you guys can’t. Or Sarah, for that matter.”

  “I guess I never honestly thought of it being impossible as well. I don’t think I ever doubted that if I reached level 10, I’d be able to become a Ruler”

  “Did you doubt being able to reach level 10?” Yvessa asked.

  Felix’s mouth twisted to the right as he contemplated the question for a moment. “You know what? I don’t think I ever did. At least not after a certain point. Once I was on the path, I never doubted reaching the end of it. You?”

  Yvessa shook her head. “Same, for the most part. I wasn’t fully sure that I wanted to be a fighter while I was growing up, so I didn’t truly see becoming level 10 as a certainty. But even then, I always assumed that if I did make it to level 10, then I’d surely become a Ruler. And once I was about thirteen or fourteen, both goals became certain.”

  Sam smiled and raised his glass. “Here’s to us and our earned sense of self-confidence.”

  “Of course,” Felix said, “we can always die before we reach level 10.”

  “How cheerful.”

  Yvessa chuckled. “I bet that you also haven’t seriously considered dying to be a possibility.”

  “Meh.” Felix shrugged. “Not really. But I do recognize that it might be possible. While not becoming a Ruler—if I don’t die—isn’t.”

  “That reminds me,” Sam said. “When are we getting the lessons to tough us up and make us ready to face our own mortality?”

  “Oh you missed it. It was a first-trimester course. Very boring. They just made us write ‘mortality’ on a mirror and stare at it for twenty minutes.”

  Sam laughed. “Probably still a better plan than sending us out there without any mental preparation whatsoever. I’m sorry to say, you guys, but none of us actually feels like we’re mentally prepared to face death.”

  “They have some talks during Military Training. Same thing as in boot camp, from what I’ve heard. But it’s not like there’s any way to really prepare you for the real thing besides facing it in reality.”

  “The Sarechi do have something close, though,” Yvessa said. “Right before the end of the Muster, the participants are sent to one of the front worlds to experience fighting the Epiraks. Albeit it’s in a very controlled situation without any real danger. But it’s still fighting the Epiraks face to face.”

  “And the Epiraks just let them do that?” Sam asked.

  “Not much they can do with more than a dozen of Rulers are there to keep watch. It’s not like the Epiraks care that much about a few hundred Brutes dying.”

  “I guess you’re right. It will take a few hundred thousand to move the needle.”